Page 26 of Lake Hollow Curses

With Remi busy painting the mural downtown, we took the opportunity to discuss party plans with her uncle. Doing it all together was unforeseen, since Wilder usually makes excuses not to be involved. He’s doing his best to provoke Charlie at every turn which is making Cal, and I play mediator.

“Oh, that’s not necessary. We’re talking about my niece! Of course you can have it here. I insist. As for paying me any type of compensation, that’s just ridiculous. Leave the food to me. Whatever you do please don’t let Ceily bring anything she considers edible. Jim is developing some new items for the food truck; it’ll be the perfect opportunity to try them out.” And there it is, the angle he can use to make it a business decision. If ‘smarmy’ was a person…

Skip irons out details with Charlie, while the rest of us are disregarded. He clearly wants to impress Charlie. Based on the looks Gibson keeps giving us, he’s not going to be swayed from thinking Skip is a clown.

My eyes keep falling on Wilder, I can’t help the draw. The more time we’ve spent together, all the repressed feelings keep working their way out. Unlike the freedom I feel with Remi, I’m feeling insecure around him. Waiting for the rejection to come, I keep resisting the urge to be affectionate with him, to show my feelings beyond sex. He’s not giving me a reason to. Hell, I’m more affectionate with Cal, who has become a better friend than I could have imagined. All the time spent with Sara, I managed to know him at just a surface level; that he plays baseball well, that’s an understatement, and that he’s funny. I didn’t expect him to be genuinely nice or considerate.

He nods his head towards the door, using two fingers to mime running. It’s tempting. What I’d like to do is pay a visit to Remi, but going downtown means attention I’m not looking for. Thankfully, dropping in at Flicks n’ Fun as it opened, meant I could slip into Skip’s office without any issues. Each time thefront door of the ticket building opens ringing the bell, I give up more hope that leaving will be as uneventful.

Last night I took a walk with Remi to Pop’s Grocery store right before it closed, resulting in being stopped four times, followed by someone in a vehicle, and being told by Wilder, later, that I made the local news and video of us showed up online. We were out for twenty minutes. I’ve accepted that I need to learn the best way to deal with the interest, but it won’t ever be effortless.

When we’re finally freed from Skip’s office, Cal and Charlie leave to meet up with Mitch to finish up the last of the clean out at Lala’s old house. I don’t know what to think about the medication that found its way into one of the boxes from the house. There’s no reason for Mitch to lie about not putting it there. Finding that dirty metal box with a broken clasp lying on top of sheet music, caused instant frustration. Leave it to Mitchell Gibson to lay something dirty on top of the papers, disregarding how important those papers would be to me.

If he didn’t put it there, who did?

Wilder and I leave through a side door out of the office that faces my parent’s property. Dad has called me twice, since returning from vacation. He doesn’t mention Lala or the fact I’m still in town this long, preferring to tell me he’s researching property lines and thinking about investigating Skip James. “No time like the present,” I say to myself.

“What?” Wilder asks me, knocking his shoulder against mine, giving me his cocky half smile.

Before I can change my mind, I continue walking past the Prius I’m borrowing towards my parent’s home. “Oh, fucking hell,” I hear Wilder say behind me. “Your dad hates me. Well, he hates everyone, just hates me more.” Little does he know that my dad doesn’t dislike him at all. The problems he’d gripe about in Wilder’s presence were always about me.

Dad answers the door with his usual grumpy look on his face. “Son.” He nods before holding the door open for us. “When did this knocking shit start? This is your home, too.” He nods at Wilder as he walks past him. “Been awhile, Wilder.” Almost six years, but who's counting.

“Your mother started golfing last month with that group of retired teachers, you know the loud-mouthed ones?” Sure, dad. He likely says these things to their faces which just ups the cringe factor. “That’s where she’s at.”

“Good for her. She’s staying active and being social. It’ll keep her healthy in retirement, right?” I’d bet she joined them to escape dad’s long rants and bitchfests. In the past she would consider the walk she’d take from the house to her lawn chair at the back of our property for a cigarette exercise.

“Hmph, just a reason to drink in the middle of the day.”

“You still have this thing?” Wilder asks dad, patting the decrepit gold recliner he sits in. “Wow. Remember that time we relocated it to the garage as a joke and you moved Grady’s bed to the garage for a month?”

Christ. I cautiously look at my ornery old man expecting him to be upset, instead he’s got a big smile on his face, and a chuckle working its way out. He rarely laughs, so I’m taken off guard. “He never moved it again, that's for damn sure.”

Dad and Wilder get started talking about dad’s latest project in the yard, while I watch them. Casually sitting on the arm of dad’s recliner, Wilder is animated while describing an old Harley Davidson a co-worker of his purchased. I’m the odd man out. All these years while Wilder doubted dad liked him, I knew they had an ease in communicating that I didn’t have with my own father. Yes, I liked classic cars, which dad made his money restoring, but the music interests and my close relationship with Lala put up barriers.

Dad’s crackling laugh rings out as he slaps Wilder’s leg. “I’ll admit, I never expected the two of you to mend fences.”

“Me neither,” I say quietly. “It’s actually because of Lala that we reconnected. She called Wilder asking him to come back to Lake Hollow to meet with her.”

My parent’s cat Chevy’s low whine and the ticking of the Godfather clock in the corner of the den are the only sound for minutes, while dad and I share a look. I can see the emotion he’s holding back, a mix of despair, anger, grief. His face reddens as he says, “She was on one helluva mission the last year or so. I’d tell her, your mom would tell her ‘Lala leave it the hell alone. Let the authorities take care of it. Stop putting yourself in the middle of it.’ But did that stubborn pain in the ass listen to a damn one of us? Ceily, Pops, Talley, Father Chris, even that insufferable Bonnie Gibson, all told her to let it go.” He leans forward in his chair. “I know what I heard on the phone that day with her, can’t really call it an accident can I? She was not alone at that Funpark.”

Wilder looks between us with a sharp look, his eyes narrowing at me. He doesn’t even have to say it. I kept this from him, not intentionally. I’d forgotten dad’s claims because he spends all his time coming up with worse case scenarios. “Oh, okay… back up. What did you hear?” he asks my dad.

Dad tells him. It’s not helpful, because she was found alone, there were no witnesses, no video… nothing to prove what he heard.

“Hey, Dad, did Lala need medication for anything? Did she have a medical condition?” I ask, thinking he may know. Even though things were tense, at times they’d stop talking for a month here and there, they knew or heard things about one another.

“She was as right as rain. Told me after Christmas that she was blessed with Grandma Steiner’s good genes because she feltlike a twenty-year-old. That little dig came after I told her about my knee replacement.” They could dish it back and forth. “Is that what they’re saying now that she fell because she had a medical problem?” He scoffs as he stands to open the back patio blinds.

“No.” Dad listens while I recount finding the box of medication, this is the first time Wilder is hearing about it, too.

“What type of meds?” I can tell that Wilder is mad at me. Again. It wasn’t that I was trying to keep secrets or lie by omitting things. I’ve been preoccupied.

“It was Potassium something. I was going to look it up, but I’ve been a little busy getting ready to hit the road for our tour.”

Wilder bites his thumb nail, before crossing his arms across his chest. “You have to be fucking be kidding me. Potassium Chloride by any chance?” He pulls his phone out typing furiously. “Well, does that sound familiar?”

“That might be it. It was vials of it, and syringes.”

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